Why I Like Effective Altruism More Than Socialism

Oh no, not another politics post!

I.

Between the ages of 15-19, I was a deeply committed Marxist. Of course, I never would have said that I was simply a Marxist. Depending on when you asked, I would have said variably: I am an Anarcho-Marxist, I am a market socialist, I am an anarchist, I am an anarcho-syndicalist. But for all intents and purposes, I was a Marxist. To take one example, I believed sincerely in Marx’s labor theory of value, and viewed the fact that modern economists refused to treat it seriously as an indictment of the field. I also believed many concomitant falsehoods.

So embedded was I in this belief system that even after learning basic, and slightly-beyond-basic, economics: supply and demand, interest rates, inflation, quantitative easing, game theory etc.; I remained committed. I had arguments — good-sounding arguments — that I could wield effectively in defense of this perspective¹. These arguments worked to inoculate me from the infectious ideas of the capitalist class which had spread throughout the economics profession. I felt these were airtight at the time, and often they were enough to trip up those who tried to persuade me. Some of these arguments:

• Economists consider entrepreneurship a factor of production! It is clear there is only Labor.

• Economists consider only how society changes at the margin. We want to change it at the root!

• With new technology, the calculation problem may be solvable. The Soviets barely even tried, and China’s performing incredibly well with heavy government intervention!

I acknowledged that, sure, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao had their issues. But I would engage in apologia for them too — downplaying their evils, of which there were many, and exaggerating their successes, which they did have. If pushed, I would generally (though not always) condemn them. However, I would always do so begrudgingly.

II.

I was wrong about this. I was incredibly confident and incredibly wrong about almost everything I believed about the way that society worked. You have no idea how confident I was that I was right about these things. And I was totally, utterly, completely wrong².

Don’t get me wrong, many of the values I held then continue to guide me today. I do think people in the Global South are treated (in some sense³) unfairly by the rest of the world. I do think that those who drew the short straw in intelligence, conscientiousness, upbringing, and athletic or aesthetic capacity should in principle be remunerated by those who drew longer straws. I do think that our global economic system treats those at the margins — criminals, animals, the disabled — as less than, worthy of little-or-no moral consideration.

But the methods that I believed would lead to a just society were virtually entirely incorrect. The economists are right. You cannot shift equilibrium overnight, especially not in a violent uprising. Every single time it has been tried it has gone poorly, to say the least⁴. There has been no revolution of the kind I was considering that did not involve or lead to rampant and casual acts of brutality. Usually, this is by people looking to visit revenge upon those they feel have wronged them. This is not the path to a just society, I thought, surely such a path cannot go through such evils.

However, I didn’t need to believe in violent revolution, many Marxists disagree with that perspective these days. But the first cracks had appeared. Ultimately, as I weighed the evidence further, I was unable to reconcile myself to the beliefs of a reformist socialist — a Menshevik — though I tried that for a while when I was 19 or 20. The path to a just society is not by doing what feels right, what feels satisfying, even if it leads to worse outcomes on the measures we truly care about.

We must be guided by the evidence — this is what Marx himself believed, that Socialism was a scientific endeavor. Well, when the facts change, when the science changes, the methods ought to change as well. And so I am no longer a socialist. Today, I feel relatively politically homeless, and I am okay with that.

III.

So, you may ask, if I am politically homeless, what have I replaced my grand totalizing ideology with? How do I decide what my perspectives are on the issues of the day? Now that I have no belief in revolution to improve the world, instead I just look at the evidence and push for things that seem to make the world better at the margin, potentially much better (margins can get quite large). If I were to create an ideology title for myself, it would be “Evidence-Based Do-Goodism”, as this is how I judge political decisions today.

There is something liberating to me personally about not feeling tied to a tribe, not feeling that I need to defend a shaky idea that, were it to slip, would bring the whole system crashing down with it. I am now able to let the ideas fall and stand on their own merits, without concern for some broader and more abstract ideological landscape, most of which won’t apply in real life anyway.

These days, come election-time, I get to weigh the balance of evidence for each of the parties and make my own personal judgment call. This is a much more intellectually enjoyable task than simply sighing, saying that everyone is a dirty revisionist, and voting for whichever party is furthest left and has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning!

Today, the main totalizing goal around which I choose to make life decisions, which I advocate for, and which compels me forward is in fact not a political movement at all. It is more accurately described as a broad-spectrum philosophical movement — at least, this is how I like to engage with it. I didn’t really need to leave socialism behind to believe in it at all. I was involved in it long before I had fully left socialism, though it certainly hastened my departure from the reds. Today, the main goal around which I focus my life is “How can I do the most good I can,” or the philosophy of Effective Altruism. This goal is at once clarifying, motivating, and impossible to live up to.

IV.

Effective Altruism is not a political movement, though it does tend to correlate relatively strongly with certain stances on certain issues. For example, almost everyone in, or associated with, Effective Altruism agrees that the way we treat animals is monstrous and ought to be rectified as soon as possible (though not everyone⁵).

Furthermore, effective altruists tend to think that helping those in the global south who often die needlessly of malaria, suffer needlessly from tapeworms, and are economically downtrodden can be done now, by us. Yes, today!! We don’t need to wait for the oncoming revolution⁶. We can help them right this second thanks to the wonders of globalization. We can also know with high likelihood that it is, in fact, effective. We now have reams of evidence on how we can do the most good with our money.

I would have, in my earlier days, rolled my eyes at the development of AI. The final gamble of the capitalist class to automate away all labor, and replace humanity with pure capital. Techno-capital apotheosized. Okay, well, I would have been pretty close to the mark on that one — if oversimplifying it a bit. But we don’t need to just sit back as this occurs and lament its inevitability. Not when we can actually do something to stop it, or steer it so that there’s a better outcome!

Effective Altruism doesn’t require you to abandon any ideology, you can remain a committed Marxist, or a committed Capitalist, a committed Atheist, or a committed Christian. So long as you think we should try to reduce suffering, be it the suffering of humans today, the suffering of animals, or the potential suffering of your own great-great-grandchildren — you can take your pick and join the fight for the good side. There are many issues in the world we should try to fix, and not enough people trying to fix them.

You could help simply by campaigning to increase your government’s spending on foreign aid⁷, or if that’s not for you then by trying to increase awareness of the oncoming changes that may be wrought by AI, or if you prefer, simply by changing your diet to consume less meat, eggs, and dairy on the margins.

Finally, if you think absolutely everything about effective altruism is fundamentally at odds with your political ideology, such that there is no way you could see yourself contributing to any of this at all, I encourage you to try talking to those in Effective Altruism. If you are currently at university, there may be a group where you can ask about these ideas. If you are in any major city, there are often meetups where people will be happy to argue with you⁸ — or talk calmly with you — about how you might be able to help improve the world.

I think it’s a much nicer way to live life, knowing that you’re at least trying to help. I hope you do too.

But who knows? Perhaps I’m completely wrong yet again — though I doubt it.

1. It seemed I was always having to defend it from those who seemed to be experts in their fields — at least for most quantitative fields.

2. At least, this is what I believe today. But you dear reader, may know better, as now I am confident about this.

3. It’s kind of complicated, one has to consider next-best-options and such.

4. You may bring up Catalonia, but you would be wrong, bad stuff happened on both sides, and the Catalonians lost badly anyway.

5. Yes, he is technically a “Rationalist,” not an Effective Altruist — I said “associated with!” I’ve seen him at EAGs!

6. Any day now, I used to say while living it up in the West. Any day now we will help these people with our global revolution.

7. Which the UK government recently cut, along with the US government. Let’s bring that back!

8. This was always my preference, but YMMV.